Illustration: Adam Mazyr
Rebecca Minkoff is thinking about spring, which is to say spring of 2025, the season her design team is focused on. They’re also making 20th-anniversary plans for Minkoff’s eponymous fashion line. “We’re really going to be taking a nod to my launch, and what was in the Zeitgeist,” Minkoff says. “Sex and the City was all the rage, et cetera — I want us to lean into the nostalgia of the early aughts, not only with our products, but with how we tell the story.” Her story this week involved a spring break trip to Florida ahead of Female Founders Day’s, an all-day festival run by the Female Founders’ Collective, which Minkoff co-founded, plus a mix of big salads, satisfying pastas, and a big stack of her favorite blueberry pancakes.
Thursday, March 7
I started my day at Spring Cafe Aspen. My friend Sabrina owns it. Whenever I can do a breakfast meeting there, I will, and I’ve fallen in love with her gluten-free blueberry pancakes. Everything about them hits all the cravings: There’s a caramelized almond-nut topping, real maple syrup, and a healthy serving of butter. And I got a hot matcha latte with almond milk and also a beet-carrot-apple-ginger juice. If I can start off the day with health, then it can be all downhill from there.
We have really become known on our floor for having the best snacks. We get raided by the two other floors. We do a hefty Wegmans delivery of dried mango, chocolate-covered almonds, cheese, fresh fruit, lentil chips, and gluten-free crackers. We try and stay away from the typical office snacks like Doritos or Oreos. On days where I don’t have time to go out to lunch, I will grab a string cheese or a hummus, but my in-office days are really for me to eat in the city at places I love. I decided to have a late lunch because I was so full from the pancakes.
Around 2:30, I went to Le Botaniste on 42nd. I had their fake Bolognese bowl, the Pasta Bolo. It’s all vegan. I love that it isn’t trying to taste like pasta with meat sauce, even though it is. There’s this weird, really delicious chimichurri that they put on it and spicy oil. I also got a hibiscus tonic there. It’s just so refreshing. I normally would have gotten the chocolate-chip cookie — I looked at it and thought about it — but the blueberry pancakes held me back.
On the nights that I know I’m gonna be in the city, I tend to leave the office later. I don’t usually do a ton of dinners out, but this week specifically was a little bit more busy because it is International Women’s Month. I left around 6:45 and went to Misi in Brooklyn. I love Misi.
I went with a foodie friend of mine who was in town from Canada. We ordered fennel, celery, Parmigiano, and walnut salad. I’m a big salad person. I don’t know why I like fennel so much. I probably have some sort of deficiency that is making me crave fennel. Then I had the tagliatelle with pesto. It was a big pasta day. Maybe this is TMI, but when you’re on the flow, sometimes you just crave carbs.
Friday, March 8
I worked from home. I moved to Dumbo ten years ago. When we went to Brooklyn, I was having panic attacks because I was a snob. Looking back, why didn’t I move to Brooklyn sooner? Our quality of life improved tenfold. At the time, we had one kid. We ended up living right on the water, with playgrounds and four miles of park around us.
I kept it light with Sakara, a meal-delivery service I’ve been doing on and off for a while. It’s not going out to eat, but it’s easier. Their glow parfait is really delicious and light. I’m a big coffee drinker, so I’ll drink two to three cups of coffee with this. My coffee at home is better than any coffee that I would buy out. My go-to used to be the Brooklyn Roasting Company in Dumbo, but that closed, so now we just buy organic beans and grind them up ourselves every morning fresh and put them through the Breville. I kind of take the espresso shot on it and I do an Americano, basically, with two heaping teaspoons of this Lakanto monk-fruit chocolate powder. It’s delicious.
I caught up on a lot of emails and anything that I missed, because my week was very meeting heavy. On a quieter work-from-home day, I’ll record an episode of my podcast with a guest who can’t travel to New York. I also use Fridays to focus on the Female Founder Collective, which I co-founded with Alison Wyatt. When we started it, I was lonely. I felt like I needed people to turn to, advice-wise, that I wasn’t getting within the fashion community, and lo and behold, lots of founders are lonely. We launched it with the idea that there should be education for female founders. We have a big event coming up at Industry City, and I needed to see where I could help. Was it helping book talent? Was it getting more press and media to cover the event that day? Was it figuring out how we’re gonna sell more tickets? I tried to focus on those.
Lunch was literally just scavenging, nothing exciting. What do I have? I knew I was gonna go out to dinner and I again wanted to eat healthy, so I had the Annie’s lentil soup and a couple of almond-flour crackers Mills. I had a very light lunch knowing I was going to splurge that evening.
I love a 5:30 dinner. I went to Raf’s with a friend who is an actress and was leaving town to go film for the next six months. I had been before and I was like, My God, I love everything about this place. I feel like a lot of restaurants have lost their spirit and their fun. Everyone is just looking around trying to see who is who. Raf’s has the energy that I’ve missed for a long time. We ordered two salads — one was the escarole, so delicious. We were honestly full after those things, but we had the rigatoni and whole dorade after. Raf’s pastas are where it’s at. I ran into a friend at the bar and we had a drink, so I didn’t head home until around 9:30. I usually like to be in bed by ten. I have a baby that still wakes up in the middle of the night, so I definitely need my sleep.
Saturday, March 9
Saturdays always start with Almondine, my go-to splurge. It’s a little bakery that’s been in Dumbo for 15 or 16 years. The croissants taste as close as you can get to France. I would not say they taste exactly like France, but the closest I’ve been able to find. I used to be in France twice a year — not because we showed during Fashion Week, but that’s when you’re also selling to your international buyers — and I would soak up as much of the eating as possible. We got chocolate croissants for the kids, and my husband and I split an almond croissant. I drank lots of coffee and I kind of kept the morning light because we were going to have brunch later on.
If it wasn’t cloudy and raining, we would’ve taken the scooters out to Brooklyn Bridge Park, but the weather wasn’t great. So, there was a long movie. What I love about my children is they’re really into old movies. We watched Twins with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. Afterward, we have these really fun cardboard box things that you can build little mini houses with, so we had a big indoor building festival. My goal on the weekend is just be with the kids as much as I can.
Out of selfishness, I fed the kids a couple of snacks so that we could have a later brunch and not wait in any insane lines. I gave them turkey, salami, carrots, and apples just tide them over the noon time period. I wanted them to be hungry enough for later.
We went into the city around 2:30 to have lunch at Jack’s Wife Frieda, because I feel like they are family friendly. I always get a side of halloumi I get the kale Greek salad. On cold days like this, I split a matzo soup with my kid.
We went back home and played. One of my sons is very good at imaginary play and he’ll play by himself for hours. We have a basketball hoop in the apartment so my older son shot baskets. My little one toddled just between, knocking down anything that anyone has done and putting chokable items in his mouth — there is always an adult on him to just make sure that the madness is contained. My daughter loves crafts. Sadly, she’s very into fashion. I was hoping she wouldn’t be, but I enrolled her in this class in Tribeca called the Fashion Squad. One day she came home with an outfit that she made. She was so proud and so excited.
For dinner, my husband made his chicken soup. It’s the best. We wanted a cozy meal. We’ll take our roasted-chicken bones, boil them overnight and then he uses that stock as the base. He adds all the fresh chicken and ingredients. Two of our best friends came over for soup. They are why we are in the neighborhood. They were in Dumbo first, in our building, and then they moved across the street. They have two daughters that are my daughter’s best friends. The girls played dress-up before we all went to bed.
Sunday, March 10
This was a travel day. My husband likes to fly midday. I am more of a “let’s get up and go to our location” person, but I gave in. I made the kids oatmeal for breakfast. I try and fortify it with flaxseed, butter, and heavy cream. They get good, healthy fats. I opted just for coffee because I don’t like to fly with a ton of food in my stomach. The flight was around 11:00 a.m. I always have snacks for the kids. I do like a balance. I’m not a tyrant; I can’t be the mom that packs the perfectly healthy lunches. I packed what I could control and then I caved a little bit at the airport. I’m willing to buy them Doritos as long as they eat my salami and my apples.
On the flight, I let them have Sprite. I’m not trying to be crazy, especially because it is spring break. After landing, baggage, and some meltdowns, we went right to this really cute restaurant in St. Pete called Wild Child. They have a great Sunday brunch. They have these tuna tostadas that are delicious, with some avocado crema and a little bit of spice. I had a bunless burger and a salad as my meal.
By the time we finished, it was around three, so dinner was really light. We went to my parents’ house. We made a big salad as the focus of the meal. I love making salads. I am on Instagram every night looking for recipes. Every night ends up being Groundhog Day, but I always have a ton of saved recipes that I want to try.
I tried that Viral La Scala salad without the salami. I put that on the side and it was really good. It’s like garbanzo beans, parmesan, and onion. I added my twist of hearts of palm and artichoke hearts to make it more hearty. I thought it was delicious, but I underestimated how long it takes to cook chickpeas and I didn’t want mushy ones.
Monday, March 11
I have some of the kids in spring-break camp, so I had the morning free. I started with coffee at this place called the Blend and then went to hot yoga. From there, I went right to this place called Escape Root. I got a celery juice, a beet juice, and a matcha with almond milk. Everything there is organic and delicious. I got an açai bowl for later just to keep in my fridge with granola, a little bit of chocolate chips and blueberries, like a breakfast/lunch.
This particular spring break was not been the “break free” that I was looking for, so I did end up working a little bit, and I spent like two hours in the car, picking up kids at camp and traveling to play dates. When I got home I was hangry. Against the Grain makes these really delicious pizzas. I took the base of it, which is a grain-free and gluten-free dough, and then I did half cheese for the kids, and, on my side, onions and peppers and a ton of veggies. I had that with a simple Caesar salad.
